The AMD Radeon RX 590 Review, feat. XFX & PowerColor: Polaris Returns (Again)
by Nate Oh on November 15, 2018 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V (DX11)
Now a truly venerable title, GTA V is a veteran of past game suites that is still graphically demanding as they come. As an older DX11 title, it provides a glimpse into the graphically intensive games of yesteryear that don't incorporate the latest features. Originally released for consoles in 2013, the PC port came with a slew of graphical enhancements and options. Just as importantly, GTA V includes a rather intensive and informative built-in benchmark, somewhat uncommon in open-world games.
The settings are identical to its previous appearances, which are custom as GTA V does not have presets. To recap, a "Very High" quality is used, where all primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, except grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
The ever-popular GTA V has proven itself a very demanding game even on the latest hardware, despite its age. Overall NVIDIA cards usually fare much better on it, and the GTX 1060 6GB is no exception. Polaris' best efforts across generations have narrowed the gap but isn't enough to bring it into contention against the GTX 1060 6GB. The 2GB framebuffer of the GTX 960 isn't sufficient for 1440p and falls behind the R9 380 4GB with completely unplayable performance, though at 1440p both the R9 380 4GB and the GTX 960 lack the raw horsepower to drive gameplay at that resolution anyway.
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deksman2 - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
It would be an unfair comparison because AMD is using GLOFO 12nm LP node designed for low clocks and mobile parts, whereas NV is using TSMC 16nm high performance process designed for high clocks and efficiency.You can't compare the two back to back and NV would still win in such a situation.
But, for the sake of argument, a Polish website (at least I think it was Polish) apparently managed to undervolt RX 590 just recently and total power consumption dropped by 34W.
Here's the website:
https://pclab.pl/art79190-20.html
Polaris power consumption problems stem from a combination of problems:
1. (and this would be the biggest) GLOFO 14nm/12nm process nodes designed for low clocks and mobile parts (not worth it even raising frequencies on 12nm because as we saw, both Ryzen+ and Polaris were already boosting WAY past the GLOFO node 'comfort zone' to the point efficiency was thrown out the window.
2. lower yields on GLOFO nodes contributed towards lack of voltage optimisation resulting in higher maximum voltages on GPU's shipping from factory.
3. Excessive amount of compute hardware. Polaris has powerful compute which is not really used in games, and this hardware does suck up a lot of power, and Polaris in general has about 40% more stream processors than Pascal has CUDA cores.
Kurosaki - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
I still don't see any incitement to upgrade from my 290X, sad in a way.. : /eva02langley - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Vega 56 if they are on sale for the right price...However yeah, no reason to change.
The_Assimilator - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
*sound of dead horse being beaten*Santoval - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
How long will AMD keep squeezing the blood out of Polaris? They have practically abandoned their GPU division, their mainstream one anyway. A single refresh could be occasionally justified, but a refresh-squared of the same GPU (or GPU series) equates with rebranding.I realize that they overwhelmingly focused on their CPU and APU division in order to compete with Intel, and that drew resources and engineers from the GPU division. But competition is required in the GPU market as well, or else Nvidia will keep charging an arm and a leg for their graphics cards.
samal90 - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
you didn't mention in the Wolfenstein 2 page, that the RX590 performs like a GTX 1070. It's an interesting observation that should be investigated.deksman2 - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Probably because the game is well optimised for AMD hardware (a situation which is all too uncommon).But AMD's main problems stem from using an inefficient GLOFO nodes.
14nm and 12nm were both designed for low clocks and mobile parts... this is why we see massive increase in power consumption for Polaris at high frequencies... because the GPU is clocked WAY past the voltage comfort zone where it would be efficient.
TSMC nodes are designed for high clocks and efficiency... and as such, they WILL have an advantage in clocks and power consumption.
DominionSeraph - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link
Does this win the award for most pointless launch of all time? Anyone who was in the market for a GTX 970/1060 class GPU in the GTX 970/1060 price range probably bought a GTX 970 or GTX 1060 already. Releasing a more power hungry card over 4 years late doesn't really seem like it's going to move the market.When Nvidia was 6 months late with the housefire GTX 480 they at least had the performance crown compared to the 5870. This is 4 years late and has nothing.
spdfreak - Saturday, November 17, 2018 - link
Seems like a used RX 480 8GB is probably the best value out there for 1080 gaming. Plenty of them for about 100.00 on ebay. I keep looking for the price of 1060 6GB cards to come down now that there is a glut of them, but they stay stubbornly high.neblogai - Sunday, November 18, 2018 - link
RX570s are about as fast as RX480, but start at ~$150. They are new, come with warranty, and with 2 AAA games which can be considered to be worth ~$120 if you want them, or ~$60 for reselling. RX570 is a better deal.